Don't Believe Everything You're Told
by Alone Dreaming
Summary: Never meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup. A trip to Berengaria VII.


**_Don't Believe Everything You're Told_**

**By Alone Dreaming**

**Rating:** PG-13 or T for a few choice words and some suggestive references.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own _Star Trek_ or anything affiliated it. If I did, this would not be posted under fan fiction.

**Dedication:** To my Joker who, after a bit of coercing, looked up the planet referenced in this story and then listened to me talk about it. Thanks for always being there to obsess with me.

**Author's note:** After six weeks of traveling, I have finally returned to my state, my city, my home and my bed, all of which are lovely, lovely things. Living out of a suitcase loses its appeal the first time one realizes one has forgotten something. Onward, over the space of time I have written a few pieces though this is the only one ready to be posted. I would like to thank everyone for their positive reviews and their support! This story references a planet mentioned in the original series. As always, it was edited by me and the mistakes are my own. Enjoy!

* * *

Once upon a time, he saw a shirt that read, "Never meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup." Then, he smiled at it though the smile was really directed at the perky brunette who wore the said shirt just a little too tight. He can't remember her name or where they were but he does remember that catchphrase. It stuck with him over the years like gum on the bottom of a shoe, impossible to fully scrape off no matter how long you dragged the sole over the damned curb. He used this to his advantage, of course, finding witty ways to use it in conversations ranging from basic banter to deep, meaningful dialogue. And now, he thinks it's really damn ironic that he never took it to heart. After knowing it for so long, after having it imprinted in his mind, it's almost funny that he never considered it might have a non-metaphorical real life application. He figures that's his life, though. There's plenty of advice that he's overlooked from the common don't eat yellow snow to the deeper life is too short to wallow in the past. He just never supposed that a ludicrous shirt slogan would apply to his increasingly large number of experiences where people end up saying, "I told you so." He just hopes that if someone does that this time, it'll be the said brunette and not his infuriatingly honest first mate. At least with the brunette, he can have a nice pair of breasts to stare at.

Of course, the only way he's getting to the end point of the situation, typically when people say the dreaded, "I told you so," is if he figures out how to escape the dilemma. At the moment, his solution is crouching in a crevice with the busty blonde beauty he is supposed to be saving lying unconscious a foot or so behind him. He has an actual broadsword in his right hand and a scabbard hanging from his waist on his left side. Just outside his hiding place, he can see glittering scales and dangerously curved claws. He feels like he's in a fucking faerie tale except there's no guarantee that the handsome knight rescuing the pretty lady is going to survive. For one, he barely knows which side of the sword is the killing side. The only thing he's done with it so far is accidentally knock the girl out. This leads to his second downfall; he's not precisely a white knight prototype. Oh, and the dragon seems to be a fair bit smarter than the average legend portrays it to be. It does not roar, or snarl, or hiss; it broods, waits and occasionally, slips in a pointed nail into the crack to remind him that he's a dead man as soon as he gets out.

His options are limited, he decides, doing an ass scoot back to the girl. His communicator works but he doesn't want to cause any unnecessary noise. Even if that wasn't an issue, he doesn't know what in the world the ship will do for him. He doubts Uhura speaks Dragon and the transporter, his usual saving grace, is broken. What had Scotty said? I can make her run with toothpicks and gravy, sir, but if you want her to run right, she may need a few real parts. He wishes he listened instead of patting his Chief of Engineer's shoulder and telling him good work. Had he insisted on his last long conversation with Command that the ship really, truly, undoubtedly needed parts, then he would be getting a ticket out of here into the safety of his beloved lady where the dragons, generally women dealing with monthly issues and commanding officers, could be handled with words instead of sharpened steel. His sword clanks against a rock and a paw, twice the size of his body, tries to squeeze into the area. The rocks he passed seconds before turn into a thin pebbly substance.

He's crunchy, he doesn't know about human flavor but if the cannibals are to be trusted it's somewhat like chicken which is a positive sign for ketchup loving lizards everywhere, but he really didn't mean to meddle. In fact, he'd specifically planned not to interfere with anything on this planet. When he received his orders about Berengaria VII, it had been made clear as the air that his only duty was to extend a friendly hand of understanding to the men and women of the planet. Basic Starfleet bullshit; no interacting with the locals above formalities, no seeing the planet and absolutely no one leaving the ship unless it was absolutely necessary. He followed this right up until he was on his way out the door, preparing to be beamed up. Two things happened. One, Scotty informed him that the transporter was down. And two, the Queen requested, as a sign of future relations between the planet and the Federation, that he be her champion in their yearly tournament. His refusal had been polite but firm and their answer had, for lack of better terms, been, "Too fucking bad. You are doing it."

And because he'd been told to take a minimal landing party, he and his were taken with relatively no struggle. They were kept nicely, treated like princes and princesses, but it didn't change the fact that they were prisoners. Nor does it make any difference now, as he attempts to rescue a chick when he barely knows how to use the business end of his weapon. One of the claws attached to the scaly appendage brushes against his uniform and the front of his shirt falls apart like butter under a knife. A thin line of blood appears on his chest but it takes another ten seconds for it to sting. Sharp-- the word for the beast's weapons of choice is sharp. His sword is definitely not up to par.

"Captain?" his communicator crackles.

He snatches it up. "Scotty, please give me some amazingly positive news."

"How about fifteen minutes away from good news?" Scotty offers.

"Mr. Scott," he says slowly. "I am currently stuck in a rapidly growing crack in the wall with the mother of all fucking monsters attempting to eat me. My only weapon should be on display at a museum. Fifteen minutes is not good enough."

"Captain, I'm giving it everything I can," Scotty protests. "She'll be running in fifteen minutes and we'll get you outta there."

"Oh, my head," the blonde groans. She sits up with a hand pressed against her cranium, blinking rapidly.

"Well, beam up the landing party and whatever's left of me then," he says. "Kirk out." He takes in the girl's low cut, gauzy outfit and reminds himself they are in mortal danger. "How are you feeling?"

The response he gets is not the one he expects. "You kidnapped me." Her lower lip juts out. "You kidnapped me!"

"What?" he says. "No, no, I rescued you!"

"You stole me from my father!" she shrieks and for the first time, he notices a few things about her. For one, her eyes are very, very large with golden irises and slit like pupils. Her perfectly manicured nails are half an inch longer than necessary and rather pointed at the top. When she speaks, he notes, her teeth looked like they are meant for ripping and shredding and is it just him, or is her tongue too skinny? "You stole me from my wedding!" And she lets out a howl.

"Wait? Wedding?" he repeats. "No, no, they said you needed to be rescued! I was supposed to save the princess and bring her back!"

Large, pearly white tears are dripping down her face and the dragon is trying even harder to get to her. "You were going to sell me into slavery to the terrible men in the city," she wails and puts her pretty face into her hands. Her tears hit the ground and bounce. "You wicked, wicked man!"

He attempts to wrap his head around things while avoiding the searching fingers of the dragon and keeping his distance from the weeping girl. So, he actually was sent on a quest of dark intent, not of innocence like he initially thought. He's not the knight of pure virtue, but the villain of the tale who steals away the girl to be held as a prisoner. He has a hard time accepting it and he just misses getting touched by a dragon. Dodging forces him to press himself into the wall in order to not trip over the girl. But why ask him to do this? Why steal a dragon girl? Yes, she's beautiful but he cannot imagine that a creature who, judging by her nails and teeth, is perfectly capable of mauling someone would be a particularly good servant of any sort. He's wishing now that he had taken a huge landing party with him and merely left a note for the King and Queen about how much the Federation wanted to get to know them. Then he wouldn't be here right now.

One of the tears rolls over and bounces off his shoe. He stoops down and picks it up, marveling at the swirling whiteness and it's perfectly round shape. And then he realizes why this woman is worth so much. She's crying pearls; perfect, white, glorious pearls. Dropping the tear again, he edges closer to her. How does he explain this to her? Hello, sorry about the kidnapping, it was a misunderstanding, why don't you just go back to your wedding and I'll go back to my ship and we'll call it even? He really doesn't believe that her father will be that reasonable about it. He knows that he wouldn't be if his daughter was stolen on her wedding day.

"I'm sorry," he says softly. "You may not believe this, but I really didn't know." She sniffs and stares at him with large, sad eyes. "Really. This is my first time on this planet. Uh…" He looks down at his ruined shirt and rips a hanging strip from it. "Here… for your face."

She takes it and sniffles loudly. "You were going to take me to the city."

"Yes," he concedes. "But only because they told me you were a human girl who'd been kidnapped by the dragons."

Her eyes start to glow and her hair floats around her. "We," she snarls, "are not the low-life female snatchers! Every year the same thing-- steal four or five of us on our wedding days and drag us off to the slave pits of hell where they make us cry all day and all night so they can sell our tears! My sister, two years ago, and my mother five years after my hatching! And they have the gall to tell strangers we kidnap them! We leave well enough alone! We--"

He does something dangerous. He reaches out and places a finger against her lips, silencing her, praying that she doesn't bite it off. Those fangs of hers look as though they can do that and more. "I'm sorry. I know now. I promise that I would never intentionally sell anyone into slavery. I only did this under threat to my crew, my mission and my person. But even with that on the line, I would not trade your safety and happiness for them. I would find another way."

She pulls her face away from his hand and dabs her face with the piece of his shirt. A pair of long, white tears trickle down her face and drop into her lap. "You are not like those before you. That much I will admit."

"Captain," Scotty's voice calls. "We're two minutes away from beaming up. The crew first?"

He pulls his communicator from his side. "Yes, crew first, Scotty. Then get me the hell out of here."

"What does beam up mean?" the dragon girl inquires.

"It means," he says slowly, "that I am going to vanish and you can go back to your dad and your wedding and pretend like this never happened."

She blinks at him. "You have magic then?"

"Something like that," he hedges. "More like technology. But it'll look like magic."

Suddenly, she's pouring tears again and he cannot figure out why. She hiccups, chokes and sobs great mounds of pearls. "Then you leave me to the other champions! Helpless, defenseless!" Then she adds, in a growling, vicious tone. "I thought you were different!"

He's nervous because her talons are getting a little too close for comfort but he cannot back away because her father's are a mere half a foot away from his side. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Did you really think you were the only one questing after us?" she demands. "Others will find me and take me. They will slay my father--"

"How are they supposed to do that?" he snaps. "The freaking stick they gave me just bounced right off of him!"

"--and steal me away to the city forever."

Underneath layers of nonchalance and carefully practiced womanizing, he has the heart of a hero. He wants to swoop in and safe this bizarre woman from whatever fate she is doomed to if the others find her. And it's not all for the glory and honor-- he could care less about being on the dragons' list of favorite people-- but for good and righteousness and because she looks so pretty in that outfit she's wearing. He won't deny a tad of shallowness in it. Pursing his lips, he comes up with a handful of reasons not to be the good guy right now. The first of these is, of course, the catchphrase. He's already delved too deeply into the issues of this place; he ought to avoid further encounters. The others have to do with Starfleet policies, his own safety, the fact that Bones is already going to give him shit from the scrape on his chest much less any other trouble he might get into while bludgeoning other knights. Then he looks at her one more time, sees her tears, and realizes that it's his fault she's here to begin with.

"If I get you home," he begins, nearly shouting over the force of her wails, "can you promise me that your relatives won't snack on me?"

Through the tears, she smiles like a crocodile, "I can make no such promise once I leave you. But if you are by my side, I can assure you a relative amount of safety." She hiccups. He sighs.

How does he get into these situations?

"Scotty," he calls. "Change of plans."

"Sir?"

"I'll contact you when I'm ready. Get the crew up and wait for my signal."

She stares at the communicator with interest. "Do you keep your magician in there?"

"Something like that," he says again. "Something like that."

He offers her a hand and together, they get to their feet. She wobbles a bit, touching her head where he hit her and frowning. He collects his useless weapon and stares at the ever seeking hand of doom. The girl, obviously, shows no fear at all. She steps forward and with lightning speed, swats the hand. Then she speaks in a high pitched, lyrical tongue, in a pattern that he directly relates to singing. The paw stills and her tiny hand wraps around one of the scaly fingers. She takes his arm with her own and leads him from the crevice, speaking in the same language until they are once again standing in the grayish light of Berengaria VII. Oh, and in full sight of a creature over a hundred times his size with murder on its mind. He swallows hard and prays that the girl isn't being conniving and luring him out to be eaten.

She lets go of his hand and throws her arms around the thick, black snout, jabbering on. The beast has a wary eye on him but lets down most of its guard to nuzzle its daughter. He watches the interaction, his mind still baffled by the entire scenario and very unnerved by the spikes running down the creature's spine and the brown stained, jagged teeth poking out through its lips. There's no way that this sword could actually kill something as vast and dangerous as a dragon, he thinks, as he looks at the carefully layered scales. Unless, of course, there is a trick to it like in the old Earth novel by J. R. R. Tolkien where tiny Bilbo Baggins discovers the weak point in the dragon's armor. He wishes he could figure that out himself as an assurance that if things go bad, he can take someone out with him.

"What is your name?" the young woman asks of him.

He blinks, startled. "Captain James Tiberius Kirk, ma'am. At the service of you and yours."

She repeats it but fumbles the name up in the pretty language of the dragons. At this point, her father is sitting back on his haunches, giving the impression of a demented puppy dog instead of a man-eating monster. Rivulets of blue smoke trickle from his wide nostrils and into the sky, matching the already grayish atmosphere. If Kirk had to put a title to his expression, he would say thoughtful, but thoughtful seems to be a silly emotion when applied to a gigantic lizard. Then, it speaks, in the same piping, graceful tone, completely at odds with its massive and dangerous state. Its large, green eye focuses on Kirk as the words escape it and he wonders what is being said. Look, father, I bring a good meal for the wedding feast tonight. Yes, daughter, you have though he seems a bit scrawny. Well, darling father, ketchup does wonders to even the boniest of treats.

"My father thanks you, Captain James Tiberius Kirk," she says, pulling him back to the present. "He says that you are the first human he has ever met who is honorable. He wishes to know where you are from."

"A planet far away," he answers, because saying Earth will be meaningless to her. Besides, what if they can fly in outer space? He does not want to be held accountable for a full out invasion of Earth by dragons. It's like something out of a bad holo. His brow knits and he wonders at the thought process. His mind seems to be jumpy, even for him. "But I work with a… group called Starfleet. We establish bonds with different peoples on different planets with the intent of working towards a better future."

She relays this and then asks, "Father wishes to know if the Starfleet would help us in our fight against the enslavement of our people."

He feels woozy so he sits. "We do not believe in war unless it's absolutely unavoidable," he answers. "But I will tell them of what is happening on this planet and I'm certain that they will do something."

"What sort of something?"

"I don't know." And it's the best answer he can give. Right now, he's trying to figure out a way to convince Starfleet to side with a group of big lizards that squirt fire out their noses and tear up rocks like kids tear up leaves. He doesn't think it's going to be an easy task. Hell, if he was them, he'd laugh himself right off the view screen and then write him off as another Captain who snapped in the depths of space. What he could use right now, he thinks, is Spock. Spock could come up with a rational, reasonable way to present the evidence without making everyone in the situation out as complete lunatics. But Spock's trapped in the palace and he's the one here so he'll make the best of it.

"I'll do everything I can," he finishes. "You have my word."

"And you are honest," she adds. "I trust you." She walks over and pulls him to his feet. He wavers a bit, blood rushing to his head and vision blurring. "You have my friendship and trust, Captain James Tiberius Kirk." And she kisses him on both cheeks.

He feels strangely warm. "Well, if we're friends, you can just call me Jim."

"Jim," she repeats. "I like this better. It fits you." She drops his hands and turns back to her father. "Father says that as a show of friendship for your return of my person, he will not require your aid in this battle. But he does expect to hear from you and yours again and soon." He blinks at her stupidly and she clarifies. "You may use your magician in a box to leave but be sure to send us word about your Starfleet's help."

And she climbs into the dragon's hand. It closes its fingers around her and takes off with its giant, bat-like wings. It causes barely any wind at all as it swirls upward and out of sight, leaving Kirk standing in its wake with his useless sword, a buzzing head and the feeling that he's somehow been duped on all sides. His legs give out and he sits down hard, staring at the place where the two had been only moments before. Part of him feels like he failed-- he was supposed to rescue the princess-- but another one feels like he somehow won at the same time. When he really looks at it, he wasn't the knight in shining armor after all. He was the dragon and the dragon was the rescuer. In the end, he should've been the one who was stabbed to death. Yet, he's alive and somewhat well.

"This," he says to no one, "is proof that nothing is ever like the stories say."

"Captain," a collected voice calls from his communicator, "Captain, I must insist for information as to your whereabouts, your well-being, and your plans."

He pulls the communicator from his belt, "Mr. Spock, how wonderful to hear your dulcet tones."

There's a pause. "Captain, are you well?"

"Quite, considering the circumstances," he takes in a deep breath and winces, "mind having me beamed up."

And he's there seconds later, sitting on the transporter pad. Scotty and Spock are both standing at the controls, Scotty covered in grease and sweat and Spock, as usual, completely composed. They are both staring at his hand and he looks down to see that he still has the sword. He'd forgotten about it in the process of dealing with everything else. Slowly, oh so very carefully because his chest really hurts now and his head's strangely light, he gets to his feet, leaving the sword on the ground. As he stands, he hears a series of clicks and looks down at the floor. Small, perfectly round pearls bounce across the white surface and roll into the corners of the room.

"Captain…" Scotty says.

"Mr. Scott, good work," he overrides. "I need you to make a list of the necessary parts to get the old girl in shape. Send me a copy and I'll relay it in my next transmission. Mr. Spock, I need you to report what has happened here and tell Starfleet Command that I will give my support for further interaction with Berengaria VII." He sags a bit, running a hand through his sweat dampened hair. "And when I say that, I mean with the gigantic lizard people, not with the humans. That will be related in my report on my experiences, but until then, gentlemen, I've had a long, long day. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my quarters."

He leaves them behind him, Spock raising his eyebrows towards the ceiling and Scotty wearing an expression of utter confusion. As he rounds the corner, he hears Scotty say.

"Did he say gigantic lizard people?"

"I do believe he did, Mr. Scott."

"Were there gigantic lizard people down there?"

"None that I saw, but the Captain spent more time in the wilds of the planet than I."

"Should I call Doctor McCoy and send him after the Captain?"

"I would fully support such an action."

As he steps into the lift, covered in grime, his shirt ripped, brushing pearls from his person, he thinks of two phrases his mother used frequently: this is not the hill I want to die on and pick and choose your battles with care. Considering what he has on his plate, he decides as he rides towards his room, it's a good thing he so rarely listens.


End file.
